I desire your lordship will be pleased to send me an answeare of this businesse as soone as you can, and to communicate this unto the Lord Sunderland.

LETTER XVIII.

*I have receaved thy letter, and rejoice in its contents: I hope it is from the Lord. The

* The originals of this and several more letters of less importance, all of which have been published in Dr. Maty's Review, are in the possession of Mr. Foster of Walthamstow. It was written by Algernon Sydney to a Mr. Benjamin Furley, an English merchant residing at Rotterdam, a person of considerable influence, and who was engaged in a close correspondence with Mr. Locke and others of the liberal party of that day. This letter was probably written before Sydney's return to England, in 1677, and certainly later than 1664; as in the course of it he alludes to some political intrigues as passed, in which he was known to have been engaged at that period.See Burnet's History, vol. i. p. 289, and Ludlow's Memoirs, p. 453. These intrigues, to bring about another revolution in England, could have been no secret to the government at home, and they sufficiently account for the peculiar enmity which was felt and shewn towards him.

work in hand is great and good; I am a weak instrument employed in it with others. If I consider myself, I see little ground of hope that I ever shall advance much in it: but he that can make dry bones to live, can, when he pleaseth, fill a dark and weak creature with light, spirit, and power: Not long after the beginning of the great changes, I did examine my owne hart, and tried whether I would comply with thoes in power to exempt myself from the pressures under which I lay, and the persecutions which I thought would follow upon my refusal: I soone found that I could not doe it. This persuaded me to absent myself, hoping that my enemyes would neglect me, when I was farre out of theyre sight, or that I could more easily find a defence against them in a forraigne country, than in my owne. By this meanes I lived almost three years, seldome much disturbed, but in the end I found, that it was an ill grounded peace that I enjoyed, and could have no rest in my owne spirite, because I lived only to myself, and was in no wayes usefull unto God's people, my countrey, and the world. This consideration, joined with thoes dispensations of providence which I observed, and judged favorable unto the designes of good people, brought me out of my retirement into

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theis parts. The spirits of those who understood seasons farre better than I, seemed as yet not to be fully prepared. This obliged me againe to withdraw myself. I found farre less satisfaction in my second retirement than the first, and, by the advice of friends, am once more comme upon the stage. I doe not knowe what success God will give unto our undertakings, but I am certaine I can have no peace in my owne spirite, if I doe not endeavour by all meanes possible to advance the interest of God's people. Others may judge from whence this temper doth proceed, better than I can; if it be from God, he will make it prosper, if from the heat and violence of my owne disposition, I and my designes shall perish. I desire you and all our friends to seeke God for me, praying him to defend me from outward enemyes, but more especially from thoes that are within me; and that he would give me such a steady knowledge of truth, as I may be constantly directed in seeking that which is truly good. This being obtained, all other things will followe; I shall knowe what, when, and how I am to act; and shall be prepared either to act or suffer according to the will of my maker.

I am

Your friend.

NOTES.

NOTE A.

"WHEN I was appointed to come Ambassador Extraordinary into France, I spake to my Lord of Canterbury, about going to Charenton; and when I told him that the Lord Scudamore, the Ambassador in Ordinary in France, did never go thereunto, the Archbishop answered "he is the wiser." But I, being desirous to hear what he would saye, though I knew well enough what I meant to do, for I had spoken of it before to the King, sayd, I pray, my Lord, advise me what I shall do, for you being a great minister, do better know than I the King's minde in this point of going to Charenton. But I could get no answer from him more, than that it was to be left to my discretion. By which I conceive that he would not advise me to go to Charenton, because that would have been contrary to his maxims and his approbation of my Lord Scudamore not going thether; neither would he dissuade me from it, for so he would have declared himself too much; I having told him,

that unless I had order to the contrary, I purposed going to Charenton, thereby to countenance them of the religion in France, and in regard that all Ambassadors in England had used to go to Charenton, except my Lord Scudamore: who as it is likely forbore going there to curry favour with the Archbishop, as he did in other things there also. And I have many reasons to thinke that for my going to Charenton the Archbishop did me all the ill offices he could to the King; representing me as a Puritan, and consequently in his method an enemy to monarchical government; though he had been very kind to me before. The sayd Archbishop would by no means countenance the writing of Blondells booke against the usurped power of the Pope, as it appears by my letters and those of the Archbishop."

Then follows this passage" Mr. Giannettini Guistiniani, a gentleman of Geneva, with whom I was acquainted, told me at Paris the 8th October, that about 4 yeares before, he having been at Rome, and having audience of the Pope, and a conference of three hours long; the Pope himself told him, that he had great hopes of the returne of England to the Religion of the See of Rome, and gave him many reasons for the sayd hopes."

It would appear from the following passage in the same manuscript, that Laud was not the only English prelate who was favourably disposed towards the See of Rome. "At Yorke, 29th April, 1639. Being at dinner at Sir John Melton's, where I lay, Lord Chamberlain, the Earle of Holland, present, but I think he heard it not, Mr. Endymion Porter, Groome of the